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Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Last week I was amazed by my own productivity. I posted something new on this blog three days in a row, not to mention putting a couple of things on my gardening blog. (That's right, I garden. What, did you think girls in their early twenties didn't garden? Well, you're mostly right. But I do.) And I got this blog up to twelve followers, if you count Evil Andrew Adrian. That's right. Double digits, people.

This is the point where most bloggers would probably feel more motivated than ever. You were probably expecting me to get all excited and start churning out posts. I was kind of expecting that, too. Instead, I got all excited and then didn't post at all for a week.

I practically begged you guys to follow me. I somehow managed to convince you I'm hilarious and that if you followed my blog, you'd be getting in on the next Internet sensation at the ground level, and someday you'd be able to say, "Oh, yeah, Haley's Comic. I started following that back when it was cool. Ever since she got that multi-million-dollar book deal, she's really sold out, man." Well, I did give some of you Certificates of Awesomeness. But I still owe the rest of you something in return for following my blog. I'm going to have to spend the rest of my life paying you back in the form of mind-blowing humor. I can feel all twelve of you staring at me, expectant, hopeful, maybe thinking about just cooking and eating me instead of waiting for me to have a brilliant idea.

Well, today is not that day, you sneaky cannibals, because I keep a list of blog ideas on my laptop in case my creativity ever dries up and I need to maintain the illusion of genius. So, kind of like now. Some of the ideas are lame (I'm not sure what I was thinking when I jotted down, "Caveman vs. Astronaut: Who Would Win?"), but some have potential. Here are some of the more promising ideas from my list, which I'm sharing with you because I want you to pick the topic of my next post.

(I've chosen not to alter those from the way I typed them the first time. They don't make much sense, but they're much funnier.)

My next post will most likely feature whichever topic you guys choose, unless I wake up tomorrow and decide you have terrible taste in topics, or I have a better idea between now and then. Either way, it may be a few days before I finish writing about whatever you pick, but at least I'll have something to live for again.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Last night on Twitter, I made a vow to do something embarrassing in recognition of whoever became my 10th follower. Then things got complicated. I went to bed with 9 followers, and I woke up with 11. The logical solution seemed to be to acknowledge both of them, since there's no easy way to determine who followed me first. Then things got even more complicated.

One of my new followers is KimmieKarmaLove. She keeps a pretty cool blog herself, in which she reviews makeup as well as bath and beauty products, and she's reviewed some of my bath products before. You should check her blog out. Thanks for following me and propelling my followers into the double digits, KimmieKarmaLove!

My other new follower is Andrew Adrian. The only problem is, I already know an Andrew Adrian who is already following my blog. This can mean only one thing: Andy has an evil clone who has come here from a parallel universe to destroy him and steal his identity, starting with his Blogger account. The new clone-Andy will then lead an uprising of evil clones who will overthrow all our planet's governments and replace us all with our evil clone counterparts. I'm not an evil clone expert, but based on my knowledge of science fiction movies, they're probably doing this because their own universe is about to implode or something. Nonetheless, an evil clone still counts as a follower, so thank you, Evil Andrew Adrian, for helping propel my followers into the double digits! Good luck with your sinister plan to invade Earth. Real Andrew Adrian, you probably have limited time left before your evil clone finds you. You will be missed.

And now, as promised, I will present my two new followers with a token of my sincerest appreciation for their support. Also as promised, this token of my appreciation will be just over-the-top enough to be mildly embarrassing. At least, I would think it was embarrassing. Then again, I'm easy to embarrass.

KimmieKarmaLove and (Evil) Andrew Adrian, I hereby present you with CERTIFICATES OF AWESOMENESS.

These certificates are totally legitimate and should be accepted unconditionally anywhere you go. If you encounter any problems, just make a huge public scene until either your demands are met or you're escorted out by security. I suggest having your Certificates of Awesomeness framed so that you can display them proudly in your homes.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Lately I've been formulating a master plan for my blog. It goes something like this.

1. Make my blog look way cooler than it actually is.2. Get lots and lots of followers. Or maybe just get my followers into the double digits. That would be good, too.3. Magically attract some people to sponsor my blog so I can say this is a real job.

I started trying to think of other organizations that have really effective marketing, and one type of organization immediately came to mind: cults. Every day, cults convince people to follow them blindly, which is exactly what I'm trying to do! And I'm not even asking anyone to ride away on a spaceship (mainly because I can't afford a spaceship). All I want people to do is subscribe to my blog and stop in every once in a while to tell me how funny I am.

So I asked myself: What are all these cults doing to make themselves so successful?

Cults are creepy. When talking about my blog, try to use the most creepy language possible. Broach the topic by saying something like, "Hello, friend. May I take a moment of your time to share something that has really changed my life? It's this wonderful, hilarious blog called Haley's Comic. It's LIKE a comic, except with more words…" and you know the rest. This will work even better if the other person is a total stranger.

Cults print pamphlets and fliers. AND the pamphlets contain questions that everyone in the world would answer "yes" to. Here's a flier I drew that you can distribute to your family, friends, and co-workers. And don't forget to leave them at local businesses and other public places.

Cults promise you something really cool. Usually it's eternal salvation or something like that. However, I can offer something really cool, too. ENDORPHINS. If you read my blog, you will laugh because it is extremely witty, and when you laugh, your body releases endorphins, which make you feel happy. When you feel happy, you think your life sucks less. Since perception is reality, you could say reading my blog makes your life suck less!

Cults ask you to do things. No one wants to be part of some boring movement that lets you spend your time however you want. Therefore, I'm going to set demands for you guys to meet in order to enjoy all the perks of reading my blog (to recap, those consist of endorphins, and feeling like your life sucks less).

1. Tell people about my blog. Remember to use creepy language as outlined above.

2. Make my blog seem like it's EVERYWHERE. In addition to handing out my nifty fliers, you can also mention my blog online, link to it, and share my posts on Facebook. I suggest ending all your online conversations with, "I know exactly what you mean! Here's a link to a blog post which is completely unrelated to this conversation!" I find that it sounds very natural.

3. Comment on my posts. I'll accept pretty much anything as a comment, even if you just drop in and say something like, "BANANA!" As a matter of fact, when I see your comment I'll probably get really excited and yell something like, "Everyone loves me! Who's awesome NOW?" at my cats.

4. Follow my blog. Some of you think you have valid excuses for not following my blog, like "I don't have a Google account" or "Your blog sucks." You should completely disregard those thoughts, though, because a blog is kind of like a store. I used to work in a tiny store where you could see all the way inside from the entrance. When the store was empty, it would stay empty forever, because all the passersby would look in and think, "That store is empty. It must be the most horrible place on earth." But once just one person came in, five more people would come in just moments later, because they looked inside and thought, "Hey, there's a person in there! That place must have something really cool! Maybe they're giving away nuggets of gold! I should go in there!" So the more followers my blog has, the more readers will think, "This blog must not suck nearly as much as I thought! I should follow it, too!" Plus, when you follow my blog, you can get an update whenever I post instead of having to stalk my page and feel depressed every time you check but there's nothing new.

Monday, March 7, 2011

I'd like to warn all my readers that I'm starting to delve into the big, scary world of HTML with the goal of changing the way my blog looks. This mostly involves manipulating the Blogger templates rather than actually writing my own code, because HTML is hard. Anyway, I just wanted to give you all a chance to make note of all these changes and respond with a general outcry. I look forward to receiving your confused, angered comments, which will then prompt me to try to make more, even bigger changes to please you, at which point I will likely ruin my entire layout and possibly delete my whole blog by accident because I really don't know what I'm doing. So maybe you should think twice about that, but the option is open.

Look for more changes in the days ahead. Tonight's goal was to change the header (done!), add a footer or two, and add my own drawings in the sidebar, with Ari helping me. Ari does not claim to be an HTML expert, but he still has a better understanding of it than I do.

As you can see though, we only got the header done, because I started to fear for Ari's sanity. We've only been married three days, which is a little early in the marriage for the husband to be going insane.

But maybe we'll do all that other stuff eventually, once he's had time to recover and is forming polysyllabic words again.

While playing around with my blog settings, I also changed some other things. For example, now you can leave comments on my blog even if you don't have a Google/Blogger account, and if you want to leave an especially mean or creepy comment, you can do so anonymously! Isn't that cool? I'm not really in a position to turn down any form of attention right now. I can't believe I didn't do this sooner.

Now go forth, faithful readers, and make my blog look like something people read!

Sunday, March 6, 2011

You know those billboards usually located outside businesses like fast food chains and hotels, where some unfortunate employee gets to go out on a ladder and smack up different letters to create a new message? I love it when those things take on bizarre, unintended meanings, which are often very awkward. I've passed many poorly-planned billboards over the years but have squandered my opportunities to write about them. Then last night, Ari and I drove past a Burger King billboard that read, JALAPENO CHEDDAR STEAKHOUSE NOW HIRING DAYS.

And Ari said, "Wow. That thing sure took charge quickly."

By inserting a little punctuation, skipping a line between announcements, or even just using the other side of the billboard, this Burger King could have conveyed both that they had a jalapeno cheddar steakhouse burger for sale and that they were hiring for day shifts. But instead they let the world know that the jalapeno cheddar steakhouse had usurped management and was now hiring new employees to support its regime.

We imagine it happened like this.

I would wrap this up by lamenting the lack of proper grammar and attention to detail in our society today, but honestly, this has been so amusing I don't even care.